


Eternally

by horologiiums



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-22
Updated: 2020-03-22
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:15:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23266837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/horologiiums/pseuds/horologiiums
Summary: It's only natural that the embodiment of distrust masqueraded with a false name, but now it's time for him to confess.
Relationships: My Unit | Byleth/Claude von Riegan
Comments: 24
Kudos: 135





	Eternally

As golden as the earrings that she sets down on the vanity in their bedchambers, the sun finally begins its dip beyond the horizon, casting an ethereal glow onto her pale, delicate flesh. The pleated folds that flow just above her knees of her faded, sheer nightgown catch the final traces of daylight, creating the effect that she’s the object radiating the heavenly brightness, the warm glimmer of a Verdant Rain Moon evening.

Byleth is dazzling, the luminous star that Claude had managed to catch that night many years ago in Remire Village, the kind but not always wise Queen of Fódlan; soon, she would be taking a temporary leave from the continent that she was born and raised in to view it from a new angle. Yes, in two days’ time, Claude will be soaring across the skies atop his white wyvern with his beloved clinging to his back. They’ll cross over the high peaks of the mountains that make up Fódlan’s Throat, across the rolling, grassy plains of his homeland, before at long last hitting the drier, sandier landscape of desert at the heart of Almyra where his palace and family await his return.

The thought is meant to generate a happiness within Claude — after all this time, he will be able to show Byleth his homeland, the place of his birth, the place that shaped him, broke him, the place that ultimately, as indirect as it was, brought him to _her_ — but instead he sits on their bed waiting for her to join him, fidgeting with his hands in his lap. He scratches at one thumbnail with the other for a few seconds before swapping them and giving the opposite nail the same treatment.

There’s something vital that he needs to enlighten Byleth on, but even as he sits behind her awaiting their inevitable coupling, he’s still trying to figure out how exactly he should go about it. He has secrets, secrets upon secrets upon _secrets._ Some are harmless, some are more dire, but this secret? It isn’t exactly something that he should have kept hidden from her for more than a full _year_ after he proposed to her. In fact, he should have told her _before_ he proposed. But Claude knows himself well, knows that his old habits of building up walls to protect himself die particularly hard and now they’re coming back in full force to potentially ruin the trust he had spent years creating with Byleth.

He’s well aware that he can’t keep this secret from her, not for any longer, especially considering how things would play out in Almyra if he _doesn’t_ tell her now. He can’t keep lying to her, he has to break this untruthful cycle eventually and what better time to start than this very moment? But he’s nervous, _so_ nervous, maybe as nervous as he’s ever been in recent memory, and Claude likes to fancy himself as someone with a superb recollection of events long since passed. He can confidently admit that this is a new level of anxiety for him and he hopes that this is the peak of it; he can’t take much more of this.

There’s no doubt that Byleth notices his squirming on the bed. She finishes removing the last of her jewelry — jewelry that, while pretty, she complains is nothing but a nuisance — save for the ring on her left hand. It’s the ring that Claude had given her when he asked for her hand in marriage and a comforting devotion swirls in his chest at the thought of her still choosing to wear it after so long. The small but intricately designed jewelry box clicks shut and at last, Byleth turns to look at him.

“What’s wrong?” she asks delicately. She makes no move to advance, merely tips her head to the side a fraction of an inch, inspecting him.

Not exactly fond of the idea of throwing his big secret onto her right off the bat at the start of their first evening together in a while, Claude dances around the topic, tries to find a way to casually lead into it. “Are you excited to finally see Almyra?”

There’s the slightest of pauses, a gear in her mind rotating a single cog before she answers. “I am.” Her voice is flat in a deadpan, not sounding excited at all, but Claude knows better than to be offended by it. While not quite the same as it had been in the past, Byleth is still slowly learning new emotions, learning how to _feel._ Happiness, sadness and anger are the emotions that Claude finds come easiest to her, but the more specific ones of fear, impatience and eagerness remain foreign enough that she hasn’t yet learned how to properly emote them. In those instances, she always needs the briefest of seconds to contemplate the feelings inside of her before saying “yes” or “no” when prompted. He knows that someday it will all come to her naturally, and he’s willing to wait as many days, months, years it takes for her to get there. Besides, with the way she is now, he finds her pensive expressions and posture to be… incredibly adorable.

Wordlessly, Claude gestures to the spot next to him on the bed. Understanding, Byleth sits next to him, makes sure to do so close enough so that their shoulders are touching. Claude takes her hand in his, laces their fingers together and tenderly moves his thumb up and down her own.

“I have to tell you something.” He somehow manages to start, though he wishes he could have thought up of a better way of doing so.

Nevertheless, Byleth doesn’t seem to register his second-guessing. When she speaks, her voice is a tad stilted, a bit awkward as if she’s trying to make a joke. “Was another new kind of poison mushroom discovered recently?”

An airy breath reflexively escapes Claude, the borderline of a laugh. Joke or not, of course she would expect him to say something along those lines. He had always been extremely passionate about poisons — still is, in fact — and discoveries were being made all the time; new poisons, antidotes, recipes with a unique combination of ingredients. Claude wanted to know about everything that poisons had to offer. Or perhaps Byleth thought that bringing up something he was interested in would help calm his nerves, his hand that held onto hers clamming up the smallest amount. It doesn’t fully alleviate his apprehension, but at least she got an amused sound out of him.

“You know me well, my love. But no, that’s not it.”

Claude’s expression must have turned awfully grave; Byleth angles her head curiously. Her eyebrows are curved in concern and her lips purse ever so slightly. She doesn’t say anything, waits for him to continue at his own pace and Claude is more than grateful for her patience and consideration. It’s a struggle for him to decide how to play his cards, there are too many open ends that he has trouble reading. Claude is used to being in control, of knowing how situations will play out. Not knowing how this one will end now, when he’s with someone that he trusts, someone that he _loves_ … what he feels can only be described as fear.

But fear has never had a place in holding him back before. He would find a way out, just like he always did. Byleth would find out about this secret of his someday regardless, and Claude would rather have her hear it from his mouth rather than those of nameless faces and strangers passing by in a foreign land.

Taking a deep breath through his nose, Claude braces himself, looks down at his free hand that’s still in his lap. “When we get to Almyra, the people there… they won’t be calling me Claude.”

When he glances at Byleth, she blinks at him. “Well, of course not.”

That matter-of-fact remark grabs Claude’s attention. He lifts his face back up to look at her, perplexed, wondering if she somehow already knows — maybe the goddess had granted her mind reading powers too, alongside everything else she gifted Byleth and she was about to admit her own secret to him — but before Claude can explore that train of thought further, she continues. “You’re their king now. They should be referring to you as such.”

“Ah…” A misunderstanding. At least she hasn’t been reading his mind. A strange wave of relief washes over Claude but it’s a small wave, water creeping up a shore and tickling nothing more than his feet. “That’s true. But not what I meant.”

Claude looks back at his thighs and he doesn't need to see Byleth’s face to know that she continues to eye him sympathetically. “Then what?” Her words are gentle, almost a whisper, her voice alone speaking of her desire that she doesn’t want to push him and that he doesn’t need to say anything that he doesn’t want to.

Whether he wants to or not, however, this is something that Claude needs to say. Silently, his gaze is drawn to Byleth’s hand that he holds. The ring on her finger, embedded with a vibrant emerald stone, holds a promise between them. An oath, that they will walk side by side, hand in hand together into the dawn of the peaceful, happy world that they are on their way to creating. Around his neck, hanging from a silver chain, is the ring that Byleth had presented him. The band rests just below the neckline of his drawstring shirt, over his beating heart.

In this moment, the ring feels heavier than usual and Claude is unable to determine whether or not that’s a good thing given the current circumstances.

“Claude’s a popular name, isn’t it?” he says dumbly, and he realizes that his words make no sense in relation to the last thing spoken between them.

Byleth looks at him, the faintest pull of her brows hinting at her confusion. “It is.” she agrees anyway, apparently trusting his judgment and he’s thankful that she’s willing to follow his lead. “There were a few other Claudes besides you in our army, weren’t there?”

“Yeah.” Claude feels his shoulders release their tension for only a breath, relieved at first that she had passed the baton of their conversation back over to him flawlessly, but the stress returns almost immediately, the hard part of this entire ordeal approaching far too swiftly. But he has to follow through, he must. “It’s a good name. It blends in with Fódlan’s language and culture, almost like a disguise. It…” His voice falters and Claude swallows, can hear it in full, which lets him know that Byleth has heard it too. “It would make a good alias.” His voice becomes so quiet, he wonders if Byleth heard him.

Her response tells him that she had heard him. “Alias?” She’s just as quiet as he figured himself to be.

The pounding of Claude’s heart in his chest and the sound of blood rushing in his ears makes it difficult for him to think, to speak. It’s coming, but the coward in him can’t back out now. He attempts to smooth out his voice, to sound carefree like he always does, but he can barely manage it. “You know… like a fake name.”

“I know.” Byleth replies far too quickly and Claude screws his eyes shut, needing to steady himself even as he’s sitting down. For all of her ignorance about the world, for all of the ways she’s still learning about Fódlan, about _herself_ , Byleth is a perceptive one. She’s clever, astute, but also too humble to give herself credit for any of those things. Even if she doesn’t realize it yet, Claude knows Byleth better than she knows herself, and he can say with one hundred percent certainty that she has already figured out what he’s hinting at.

Still, she asks. “What are you trying to tell me, Claude?”

Claude.

_Claude._

He hesitates, trying to decipher how he can go about this, how he can be as gentle as possible. He supposes that no matter how kind or calm he is about it, Byleth’s reaction won’t change. The fear that had been stewing in his stomach this entire time bubbles up within him again, rising to his chest. He won’t let it hold him back, but he accepts that he’s scared, accepts that he’s the one who brought this upon himself. It was a stupid idea to not tell Byleth, _he_ was stupid for thinking it was okay to hide it for so long. No, it isn’t that he ever found it acceptable to keep it under lock and key, he could just never find an opportunity to tell her. But even that sounds like an excuse to him now, and he worries his lip, licks them instead when he notices just how _hard_ he was biting down.

He knows Byleth, knows that something like this has the potential to make her upset. How extreme her response will be is beyond him, but for whatever he receives from her, he deserves it. He needs to start being honest with her, he _wants_ to be honest with her.

“Claude is…” He swallows again when his voice wavers, clears his throat. “It’s not… It’s…”

For once, he’s at a loss for words. Just like his nervousness, he can’t remember the last time he felt like this. Either his memory is giving out or he really is experiencing the pinnacle of his emotions.

But Byleth — straightforward, curt, lovely, benevolent Byleth — can hear the words that he’s locked deep inside of his soul.

Distantly, she finishes for him. “A lie.”

He winces at her tone, when she places a name for it based on what it is to her; not a secret, but a _lie._

“Yeah…” he concedes almost silently, struggling to make the air coming up his throat form coherent words. “Yeah. It’s a lie.”

A heavy silence falls between them and Claude doesn’t resist when Byleth frees her hand from his. It’s only then, when he opens his eyes and stares at his open palm, that he realizes that he hasn’t looked at her for quite some time now. A defense mechanism that his mind has built up for him, he surmises. Warily, he casts a glance at her.

As still as a statue, Byleth’s face is angled toward her hands resting on her legs. From her profile alone, it’s difficult for Claude to determine what she’s thinking and he wonders if maybe he’s better off not knowing in this instant. He can feel his heart hammering in his chest as it's simultaneously being constricted by a vice, can feel sweat dotting his brow, daring to roll down the side of his face and down his cheek like a tear.

The hush carries on, not even their breaths audible in the weight of it all. Claude doesn’t know how long they sit there, how long Byleth needs to process what he had just told her. Maybe she doesn't need any time at all, maybe she’s simply waiting for him to leave, to be alone to mull it over without his distrustful presence distracting her.

If anything, Claude understands that he owes her an apology, wants to give her one in all of his sincerity. But before he can even try to get the words to come out, Byleth’s lips part.

“What’s the truth?” Her voice is flat, void of feeling and life.

Caught off guard, all Claude can manage is a “Huh?”

Refusing to look at him, or perhaps entirely unable to, Byleth reiterates in the same dry voice. “The truth. Tell me the truth.”

The truth. Because every lie is concocted for a reason. What Byleth seeks isn’t an apology, but honesty, and hadn’t the truth been what Claude was building up to all along? He’s already revealed the lie, sharing the opposite side of that given coin is part of the confession.

Without hesitation, Claude straightens his posture, purposefully lowers his hunched shoulders that he had been trying to hide behind. “Khalid.” he says, his voice coming out strong, stronger than it had been this entire evening but the edge of anxiety still clings to the single word he speaks. Or rather, the single _name_ he speaks.

His name.

Finally, Byleth looks at him. The ever dimming light of the sun from beyond the curtained windows of their chambers frames her form, disconnects her from the living realm and places her on a higher plane of existence. Soundlessly, she eyes him, watches him carefully with the same blank expression she had worn earlier when Claude had asked her if she was excited to visit Almyra. It’s then that Claude sees the link: she’s trying to process a new emotion inside of her. It’s ironic and almost humorous; he had described her as adorable earlier, always found this look of hers to be positively endearing and sweet. But now, he finds her unreadable demeanor unsettling. When he looks into her eyes, searching for an answer as to what she thinks, feels, _anything,_ he comes up with nothing.

Suddenly, her lips twitch, so subtly, so gingerly, that if Claude hadn’t been scrutinizing her as closely as he had been in the wake of his fears of dejection from the one he loves and trusts more than anyone else, he would have missed it. But he catches her movement, watches in what feels like slow motion as her lips part, hears her voice in what sounds like a hymn from angels themselves:

“Khalid.” Her pronunciation is off but she seems to take note of that, testing the name on her tongue again with a tiny smile on her face this time. “Khalid.” She repeats it confidently, speaking each sound that composes his name near perfectly.

Claude doesn’t notice her ring adorned hand reaching for his face until she’s already touching him, cupping his cheek and stroking it with the pad of her calloused thumb. A powerful tingling sensation originates from both the warmth of her palm against him and the sound of her voice speaking his name and Claude’s skin pleasantly burns. The heat travels down his face, his neck, spreads throughout his chest and stomach, unyieldingly continues south until it reaches the tips of his toes, all the while effectively stamping out any negative emotions that had been rising and cresting inside of him. He gazes into her eyes, absorbs the sight of the way they gleam tenderly at him. Tiny pricks of light shimmer in their depths and Claude swears that he’s looking directly at the night sky itself, somehow the entire expanse of the skies above having been embedded into Byleth’s very being.

“My Khalid.” Byleth breathes and that snaps Claude out of his trance.

The next thing he knows, he’s blinking at her frantically, his mind reeling and needing time to catch up with what just transpired. “Uh, you—” he stumbles foolishly, searching for words he doesn’t even know the locations of. “You’re not mad?”

Even as she shakes her head, Byleth doesn’t break eye contact, nor does her seraphic smile abandon her. “You had reason to hide it.” She pauses thoughtfully. “Thank you for telling me.”

Claude splutters. She’s _thanking_ him. “No!” he almost yells, needing to collect himself before he can continue without making a complete and utter fool of himself. “I mean— I wanted to.” He bites his tongue, thinks of what to say, still unused to admitting truths about himself and his own weak, flawed thoughts. But Byleth has accepted his revelation tonight, remained by his side through the thick of it and went so far as to _thank_ him. Claude truly must have been blessed by the god of fate to have been granted the privilege to not only meet, but soon _wed_ this one of a kind woman. “I have so many secrets, Byleth — too _many_ secrets. But I want to share them with you, all of them. Maybe not all at once but… someday.” He hesitates with what he says next, not wanting to overstep even though a part of him knows that he won’t be, not after witnessing what he just did. “Could you keep waiting for me?”

He doesn’t know if he deserves it, but Byleth rewards him with a kiss to the cheek. “Of course.” There’s an odd moment of uncertainty that crosses Byleth’s features after that and her smile falls as she at last flicks her gaze somewhere that isn’t his face. Her hand on his cheek retreats, settles above her breasts where her heart lay beneath. “But I, well…”

While her tone lacks any sort of severe graveness, Claude feels a momentary drop in his steadily reforming calm. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m…” Byleth peeks at him for a heartbeat before looking away again, to what Claude determines is a random space in between their chests. “I’m not used to referring to you by anything other than Claude, so I might need time to adjust.”

With a delicate warmth, Claude lets out a light laugh. Of course she would be able to express nervousness over something like that; there always had been a special kind of selflessness that Byleth carried around with her.

“Nothing to worry about, my love.” He reassures her, running his fingers down her arm carefully, so carefully that he’s hardly touching her at all. “Besides, after going by Claude for seven years, having everyone back home call me Khalid is pretty… jarring.” He frowns at the memories but is quick to shove them aside, wanting to enjoy this moment with Byleth without the incessant irritants of his homeland tainting it. “I need more time to get used to it again too.”

Confidence apparently having returned to her, Byleth lifts her face and is able to hold Claude’s gaze once more. The corners of her mouth tug upward, but not yet breaking into a smile. “We can practice together.”

Claude’s features soften and he runs the backs of his fingers along Byleth’s cheek. “I’d like that.”

They watch each other, simply admiring and cherishing each other’s presence. It isn’t long until the fleeting traces of Byleth’s smile fade away, not into something sad or negative, but into a look that Claude has so dearly missed. Her stare lowers from his eyes to his lips, then even lower to his chest, possibly to the spot she had been eyeing only moments before.

Like a shy kitten, Byleth’s fingers paw at the dark hairs peeking out from the low neckline of Claude’s shirt, pushing past the loose drawstring at its center.

“Khalid…” His name on her tongue is a whisper, like the wind calling him home. It’s odd, his name has always had a strange connotation connected to it, one that implied strength, power, things that Claude had always been shamed for lacking in the past. In a way, he hated his name. But when Byleth speaks it, when she says it as naturally and easily as the breaths she takes every waking and sleeping moment, he can’t help but feel elated. Hearing it in her voice is so fond, so intimate… he could grow to love it.

She repeats his name again, a desperate whine attached to it. Her other hand slips under the hem of his loose clothing and begins to creep up his abdomen, mapping out his body to remember the feel of it.

It takes only seconds for her touches to awaken Claude’s restrained want and need for her to be pressed close against him, so close that they could become one. Softly, he brushes some loose hairs out of her face and behind her ear, leans in and hovers an inch away from her lips. “Yes?”

Byleth’s chest rises and falls with each deepening breath she takes, her own restraint falling apart at the seams. “I’ve missed you.”

At that, the last rope reining in his self-control tears; in his haste, Khalid clumsily presses his mouth against Byleth’s and she breathes his name into his lungs, rejuvenating him, granting the scared, quivering, beaten, half-blooded Almyran child a second chance at life.

**Author's Note:**

> if you missed the news, Claude's real name is Khalid, there ya go, you're caught up with the lore now, your welcome
> 
> I wrote this on a whim for Khalid, that's why this is poopoo garbo. that's it. still, thanks if you made it to the end & I hope you enjoyed!
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/toast_ryu) where I cry about clod— KHALID & byleth all day sobss


End file.
